Her Efforts Have Helped Prevent Gun Violence for a Decade. Now She Wants Politicians to Do Their Part
If anyone, tragically, knows what the parents who lost children in the horrendous massacre in Uvalde, Texas, are feeling, it is Nicole Hockley. Almost 10 years ago, her precious son Dylan—she calls him her butterfly because of the way his mild autism made him flap his arms—was one of 20 children and six teachers murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in tree-lined Newtown, Connecticut.
What is most extraordinary about Hockley—whom I have had the privilege of interviewing twice before—is how she has been able to balance a permanently broken heart with a proactive mission. She had been a marketing director before taking a break to be a full-time mother, but when her 6-year-old was shot to death, a plan emerged to prevent gun violence in America. At Dylan’s funeral a week after his murder, Hockley stood in front of her son’s tiny casket and “spoke about the change that was needed, even though I didn’t know what the change was yet,” she told me when we had our first conversation.
The following month, in January 2013, Hockley founded Sandy Hook Promise with Mark Barden, whose son Daniel was also murdered at Sandy Hook, and Tim Makris, the parent of a surviving child. The organization’s mission has been to go into schools in all 50 states and identify the troubled, alienated, and bullied students who might turn into the next school shooters. Their awareness training has helped avert “nine credible school shootings,” she says, and been responsible for countless mental health interventions.
I talked with Hockley last week about how she has managed to gain ground in the fight against gun violence and why our lawmakers seemingly have not—though she did reveal what she knows about an imminent vote for stricter federal laws. We also spoke about how her grief has transformed and still fuels her 10 years after the loss of her son, what’s next for Sandy Hook Promise, and how you can help make a dent in the problem.
You have said that every parent who has to deal with this unthinkable grief does so in a different way. What would you say to the parents in Uvalde about what they are going through?
A lot of people have been asking me: “When are you going to Texas?” The answer is that I am ready to go at a moment’s notice. But I want to wait to be in a place where the families are able to receive me. This is the most difficult time for anyone dealing with this kind of loss. I barely remember the first 48 hours after Dylan’s murder. It’s all about really creating a space for you to find your own pathway and journey through this. All I can offer is support and a listening ear and, if it’s wanted, guidance on what potential steps are ahead and where to look for help. I stand ready to do that for any members of the community and, of course, the impacted families.
When we first spoke, you said every morning when you woke up, you had to put the pieces of your broken heart back, piece by piece. Then, when we talked in 2019, you said the grief came in waves, then stopped, then came again. Coming on 10 years, how has your grief changed?
In some respects, it hasn’t changed at all. Every morning I kiss his urn and I tell him I love him and miss him. My father recently passed, and I asked Dylan to look after Grandpa. Signs of Dylan are throughout the house, but I’m also very conscious of ensuring that Jake [Dylan’s older brother], especially as he has gotten older, has a place in the house. What’s changed is the amount of time between when I’m triggered with memories. All these scars are holding my heart together.
Many of us want to scream, as Chuck Schumer did last week, “My God! When are you going to put yourself in these parents’ shoes?” Is this awfulness with young children in Uvalde going to do it?
I do agree that this moment feels louder and more powerful than recent moments, even possibly more powerful than Parkland, which was kind of an accelerator after Sandy Hook. It was so powerful when you heard high school juniors and seniors using their voices to demand change. Now, rather than teenagers, who can talk and get media attention, we’ve gone back to children. Children don’t really have voices. But children tear people’s hearts out more. It shouldn’t be that age matters, but somehow it does.
The movement is really galvanized now. We’re seeing people who have never been political in their lives saying, “This has to stop!” We’re starting to see some movement at the state and the community level. But we’re more partisan than I’ve ever known us to be and so divided. Yet I still have hope.
I’ve had a lot of conversations [with public officials]. I think we have a small window of time here, a number of weeks before we have something to vote on in the senate. There’s going to have to be a compromise on both sides, and I definitely think that this gun safety bill has a more than 50 percent chance of being acceptable and meaningful. There’s a different sense of people coming to the table now. Ted Cruz is not going to come to the table. I’m not even going to bother wasting my breath on him. He’s practically delusional in the way he is approaching this issue. There is no heart, no compassion there. Same with Governor Abbott. But I think others are coming to the table and saying, “Look, this is an uncomfortable space. I don’t agree with everything, but I’m willing to have a conversation and see what we can do.”
Good. What public servants on that other side look suddenly hopeful?
I can’t give you names until they’re ready to go public—these are very delicate conversations.
You work on preventing school shootings. Your program, Know the Signs, teaches students how to look for signs that a fellow student is vulnerable to becoming the angry, bullied loner who will carry out a school shooting. You’ve stopped a lot of school shootings, suicide attempts, and bullying. Can you talk a little about the success you’ve had?
It’s a proven model, and it’s absolutely working; we have evidence. At the moment, nearly 15 million youth and adults have participated in one or more of our programs. We’ve had 100 suicide interventions, and nine credible school shootings have been averted. And there have been countless mental health interventions. It’s really about giving tools and empowering kids to create the community that they want, which is one in which outreach is welcoming and inclusive, and bullying and isolation are reduced. When someone is cutting, ideating about suicide, depressed and anxious, sad, or making threats, these kids are now empowered to lean in and get help for that person. It makes all the difference.
What are other things that need to be done? There have been some interesting proposals: adding red flag laws for misdemeanors as well as felonies, framing gun violence as a national security issue, safe storage procedures for guns, voluntary buy-backs, and smart guns.
All these are good ideas. Smart guns are firearms that work like your iPhone. These are guns that are only able to be fired based on the thumbprint of the person who’s the owner or purchaser of the gun. In most school shootings, the shooter takes the gun from home. If it’s not their gun, it’s the parent’s gun. And in the case of suicide by firearm, that gun comes from the home as well. So if a smart gun would insure, with smart technology, that the firearm couldn’t actually be able to be used, that would help.
The idea of safe storage makes a lot of sense, too. And I have a lot of time and energy for red flag laws. We call them extreme risk protection orders. It means that if someone is going into crisis, they are temporarily restricted from accessing or buying firearms, and if they have firearms, they can be taken away from them until they are out of crisis. Think about suicide. Think about domestic violence. Think about school shootings. All of these can be averted by red flag laws.
And then there are also other solutions. The Uvalde shooter technically purchased his guns legally, as soon as he turned 18. I would love to see a higher age needed to purchase across every state. But for AR-15s, I still struggle. I’ve never been given a logical answer as to why a civilian needs one. It’s a killing machine.
Your son Jake turns 18 on the Fourth of July. Is he involved in Sandy Hook Promise?
No. And I’ve never pushed him toward Sandy Hook Promise. He needs to find his own voice and path. A few years ago, I was working with a broadcast organization for a story, and they asked if they could get some B-roll [some additional footage] of me sitting at a table doing homework with Jake. I said, “Sure, but I need permission from him first.” He was 12 or 13 at the time. He answered, “Is it okay if I say no?” I said, “Of course you can say no, but can you help me understand why you would want to say no so I will know whether or not to bring something to you in the future?” And he said, “Always bring me stuff you want me to consider. But Mom, the next time I’m on TV, I want it to be for something I’ve done and not because my brother was murdered.” And, you know, that’s fair. That’s a hard area to step into. And I’m very protective of Jake, as you can imagine.
You are so admirable yourself. Who do you admire? And do you have any spiritual heroes?
Oh, gosh! That’s kind of all over the place. I think Michelle Obama is amazing. And I’ve met so many people I have so much admiration for. They’re humble; they’re kind; they don’t take any shit and they express themselves beautifully, with such grace.
In terms of spirituality, I’m not a religious person. I’m spiritual, yes, but not religious. I think of kintsugi, the Japanese art of embracing the imperfect and loving your flaws. It’s about pottery that’s broken and melded back together with gold. I have in my house several pictures and photographs that friends have taken, and I’ve put quotes on them that are meaningful to me. One artist, Paige Bradley, took a photograph that is particularly inspiring. It is of a woman doing yoga, her body marked by lines separating it into eight pieces. And she’s put back together with gold, and the light is coming through. I see it every day, and I gain inspiration. There are several quotes on this theme, but I think Ernest Hemingway’s is the one I go to most: “We’re all broken; that’s how the light gets in.” I think of every victim and survivor of gun violence. We are all broken in some way. But there can be beauty in rebuilding yourself from that. And that’s something I hold close to my heart.
Do you ever find yourself hopeless?
Yes, I get moments of despair, for sure. When I do, I spend time with Jake—he is my reason. Or I go outside. My mind never stops; there’s never quiet. It’s only when I’m out hiking or at the beach, diving in the water, that I get a semblance of peace. I’ll do that to re-center myself. And the house is filled with butterflies. Dylan was and is my butterfly.
Alice Walker once said: “If we want a better world, we have to make it ourselves.” This is precisely what you have done and what we must do. Tell us about the 10-year remembrance that is coming on December 14.
We’re figuring that out right now. It’s going to be about honoring what was lost, remembering where we’ve come from, and then moving into celebrating the lives that have been saved as a result. And then effectively looking forward to the next 10 years of Sandy Hook Promise and our plans to save even more lives and keep doing this until we don’t need to exist as an organization anymore.
For ideas on what you can do to help prevent gun violence in schools, visit Sandy Hook Promise to learn how you can get involved.
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